Thanksgiving: A time to engage in the “4 F’s”

Thursday

Nov 23, 2017 at 11:15 AM

We are one day removed from Thanksgiving day and officially on the countdown to the end of 2017.

By Jamal Brown

We are one day removed from Thanksgiving day and officially on the countdown to the end of 2017.I’m sure I’m not the only one who has asked repeatedly “where did 2017 go?”As I think about Thanksgiving day and the Thanksgiving season, it often reminds me of what I like to call “4 F’s.”The first “F” for my Thanksgiving holiday is a time for family.Holidays are generally a time when families come together. Thanksgiving is an important holiday from the standpoint that it allows family members who haven’t seen in other in weeks, months or even years to come together.By spending time with my family, it leads to my second “F”, which consists of food.Family coming together, telling stories about our everyday lives and laughing about old times would not be complete without a table consisting of delicious foods such as turkey and/or chicken and dressing, ham, collard and turnip greens with neck bones or ham hocks, yams, potato salad, assorted cakes and pies and other foods that will tempt us into committing gluttony.After coming together to eat a delicious meal as a family, its ushers in the third “F”, which consists of football.As we gather around, we laugh, eat, talk, eat, watch the football games, and did I mention we eat?Trash talking and other mudslinging occurs between the die-hard fans and the die-hard haters when the Cowboys are playing.The final “F” for Thanksgiving to me is a time for focus.Each year before or after the meal, we take a moment to reflect on the blessings of God over our lives during the year.Each year, the responses do not change. Some of the testimonies of the events that have transpired in our lives from the previous year may have changed, but when all the responses are given, they are usually the same from the year before or patterned after someone else's response.Family, food, and football are all good and they go hand-in-hand to making the Thanksgiving holiday special, but when one takes time to focus on their blessings it puts things in a different perspective.When we pause and focus on the fact that we have food to eat on Thanksgiving Day, that we are able to have a television to watch a football game on, and that we have family members then we can realize just how blessed we are.Regardless as to if the food is not what you want to eat, you may not can watch the game on a 52-inch plasma television, and you may not have a good relationship with family members — when you focus on the fact that you still have some of those things you will soon find out that you are blessed.We may not have everything we want and things may not be as well as we would like for them to be, but when one takes an inventory of their lives and talk to someone else I'm sure they will soon discover that they are blessed.I know that most of us take the time each day to thank the Lord for our blessings but for those who don't take the time to say thank you, I challenge you to really take an inventory of your lives this and pause to show appreciation to God for His blessings.